Blog Wander: Little Lion Lynnet’s

On November 26, 2013November 13, 2013 By cherylmahoneyIn Novel News1 Comment

Continuing my blog wander, today I have a very special event! By wild coincidence, my friend Lynn also published her first book this month, Feather by Feather and Other Stories. Today we’re doing an interview swap to share about both our books. Read on for Lynn’s thoughts about writing and publishing, and wander over to her blog for my answers to the same questions.

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Lynn E. O’Connacht is a writer by twilight and, occasionally, sunlight and moonlight. At all times she is a cisgendered white woman. She holds an MA in English literature with a focus on creative writing and fantasy literature. She has geographically confused spelling despite her education’s best efforts to fix this and has been writing stories for as long as she has been able to write. She used to type her works on an old-fashioned typewriter using red ink, but alas both the equipment and the stories have since been lost to time.

Lynn blogs at Little Lion Lynnet’s and can be found on GoodReads, Twitter and LibraryThing.

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Tell me a little about your book.

Feather by Feather and Other Stories is, as the title suggests, a collection of short stories and poetry. It’s a bit of a mixed bag. There are some pieces of realistic fiction, but it’s predominantly fantasy. Which isn’t much of an answer, I know. It’s pretty hard to respond to a question like this concisely when you’re dealing with a collection, I’m afraid. There’s such a large range to cover… Which story do you want to know about? It has biscuit-baking demons, QUILTBAG protagonists, utterly alien stories with nary a human in sight, a bunch of fairytale retellings, poetry, a one-legged dog, witches, bobble hats, sentient steam engines, fairies… Actually a lot of fairies. I blame the fairytales. Apart from space ships and the kitchen sink, it might have everything. (Warning: it may not actually have everything.) Continue reading “Blog Wander: Little Lion Lynnet’s” →

Classic Review: The Enchanted Forest Chronicles

On November 13, 2013November 11, 2013 By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Juvenile, Reviews6 Comments

One of the rereads I planned this year was Patricia C. Wrede’s Enchanted Forest Chronicles, which are among the very best fairy tale retellings I’ve ever read (and that’s saying a lot!) I’m midway through a reread right now, so because of that and because I consider this series an inspiration for my soon-to-be-released fairy tale novel, it seems an appropriate time to share this particular review again!

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I was recently sketching over the plotline of The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede for a friend, and realized that I actually remembered all the character names. As I’ve mentioned, I am bad at character names. Oh sure, I remember the main character (maybe!), but the main character’s best friend? Probably not.

But for The Enchanted Forest Chronicles…Cimorene is the heroine, and her best friend is named Alianora. And I could give you at least another six or seven names besides. All of which should say something about how great this series is!

It all starts with Cimorene, a princess who decides that she’d rather be kidnapped by a dragon than marry the boring prince her parents picked out. Princesses are kidnapped by dragons sometimes, you know. Taking advice from an enchanted frog, Cimorene goes off to find a dragon and volunteer. The dragon Kazul agrees to take her on, especially after hearing that Cimorene can cook cherries jubilee.

Is that already enough to convince you these are wonderful books? If not, I can also tell you that the story goes on with evil wizards, all manner of enchanted creatures, a magical forest (of course) and endless fun references to fairy tales. They’re funny, exciting, and even romantic in spots.

It’s not a romance with that boring prince from the beginning–Prince Therandil does turn up, but he stays insufferable. He comes to fight the dragon to rescue Cimorene; he would have come back earlier in the book, except that he was waiting for Kazul to defeat an impressive number of challengers first. He’s very put out when Cimorene explains no one’s actually fought Kazul–she’s been talking the challengers out of it, which has been very inconvenient and time-consuming.

Wrede has created one of those wonderful things in retold fairy tales–a world where there are strange and marvelous things like djinns and enchanted swords and magical caves and (of course) dragons, but where you also have to deal with getting the right pot for your cherries jubilee, and cleaning the dust out of (non-magical) caves.

The series is a quartet, plus a couple of short stories. I think my favorite book is the third, narrated by the witch Morwen, who has nine talking cats (who only she understands). This one also features a rabbit named Killer, who has a penchant for stumbling into spells, piling layer after layer of enchantment on himself. In a magical, rabbit sort of way, he’s not unlike my character, Jones.

I don’t think any of the books retell any specific fairy tale, but they’re all riddled with references, sometimes made quite casually. When Cimorene’s parents want her to get married, she says she’s too young. Her mother replies, “Your Great-Aunt Rose was married at sixteen…One really can’t count all those years she spent asleep under that dreadful fairy’s curse.” In the second book we meet a giant who’s very friendly as long as your name isn’t Jack, and a dwarf named Herman who tried the Rumpelstiltskin trade, but got stuck with tons of children when no one could guess his name (and he thought Herman would be easy).

I could probably go on citing incidents and examples for a long time…but better to just read the books. They’re good adventures, very funny–and obviously, have memorable characters!

Author’s site: http://pcwrede.com/

Other reviews:
Adventures in Bookland
Disrupting Dinner Parties
Bookzilla
Anyone else?

Buy it here: The Enchanted Forest Chronicles

Fiction Friday: A Sea Serpent and a Prince

On October 18, 2013October 14, 2013 By cherylmahoneyIn Fiction Friday, Novel News1 Comment

I haven’t done a Fiction Friday in a while, and since I’ve been chattering on about my upcoming novel release, The Wanderers, it seemed only appropriate to share an excerpt, no?

This scene is towards the middle of the novel. Julie, Jasper and talking cat Tom have just made a deal with a Sea Queen, which involves rescuing her sea serpent from Prince Randolph. Jasper and Tom met Randolph on a previous adventure, and were not impressed. Not every sentence here will make sense out of context, but I think enough is comprehensible…

Julie, Jasper and Tom exited the water abruptly. One moment they were skimming along just above the sea floor under the power of the Sea Queen’s magic. The next, they fell out of a wall of water to land in a heap on wet but not at all submerged sand. Julie’s hair fell in tangles around her shoulders, and Tom shrank to a third of his former apparent size.

Julie got to her feet, wet skirt clinging to her legs, and looked around. They were on bare sea floor, in a trench formed by walls of water rising dozens of feet above their heads on either side. The trench was maybe a hundred feet across, and several times that long, the floor covered in mounds of sand and wilted seaweed. At the far end, she could see the serpent coiled like an enormous snake, while Randolph stood before it with sword drawn, his back to them.

“Damn,” Jasper remarked. “He must have a useful enchanted sword.”

“You think he used it to part the ocean?” Julie said.

“Can’t explain it any other way. Randolph just isn’t that talented on his own.”

If Jasper was right, the sword was giving him a considerable advantage. Julie didn’t know much about judging the health of giant sea monsters, but she thought it looked ill. It was snapping at Randolph, but its movements were sluggish. “It’s probably sick outside the water,” she said. “So to rescue it, we’ll have to move it back into the sea.”

“You want to move a giant serpent?” Jasper said. “I’ve seen buildings that were smaller.”

Tom unhelpfully added, “I’ve seen entire towns that were smaller.”

“All right, so maybe we don’t move it,” Julie said, keeping her chin in the air and a positive tone in her voice. Someone had to be the optimist. “We’ll move the water back around it.”

Jasper caught the idea and the optimism. “We get the sword from Randolph, and if he can part water, why can’t we put it back?”

Tom groaned. “We’re going to get wet again.”

“You can’t get any wetter,” Julie said. “Come on, let’s go steal a sword.” Continue reading “Fiction Friday: A Sea Serpent and a Prince” →

Classic Review: The Bagthorpe Saga

On August 7, 2013July 31, 2013 By cherylmahoneyIn Juvenile, Reviews2 Comments

I’ve been looking back at old favorites in rereads lately. Today I thought I’d share an early review of one of my favorite series, The Bagthorpe Saga by Helen Cresswell. These are among the zaniest, most hilarious of books…

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Some of my favorite characters live inside of Ordinary Jack by Helen Cresswell. Ordinary Jack is Book One of the Bagthorpe Saga. The Bagthorpes are a family of geniuses, each with a precise number of “strings to their bows.” That is, a number of talents (and each one can quote how many he/she has). That’s true for all except Jack, who is ordinary, and politely disdained because of it. Jack is complaining about the situation to his Uncle (by marriage) Parker one day, who hits on a scheme to convince the rest of the family that Jack is in fact a gifted psychic who can see visions and predict the future. Chaos ensues.

Jack and Uncle Parker are a fairly rational pair, who will chart you through the madness of the rest of this cast of truly hilarious characters. There’s Mr. Bagthorpe, a TV writer who loudly and frequently complains that everyone is disrupting the delicate vibrations he needs to write. There’s Grandmother, who cheerfully starts an argument with everyone, and is in years-long mourning for her beloved pet cat Thomas, who everyone else remembers as the worst-tempered animal who ever lived. There’s Uncle Parker’s daughter Daisy, who is four years old and likes to write on walls and set fire to things, often with literally explosive results. There’s one scene involving a birthday party and a box of fireworks hidden beneath the table… Daisy’s mother, Celia, is a poet and far too ephemeral and dreamy for this world, who feels Daisy’s spirit shouldn’t be restrained. For reasons Jack never quite understands, Uncle Parker is madly in love with her.

That’s only a sampling. They are all people I would never want to know in real life, and would definitely never want to let into my house (especially Daisy!) but they’re enormous fun to read about.

There are ten books in the series, taking the Bagthorpes through adventures including television fame, a haunted house, and more than a few explosions. The later books do vary in quality somewhat–they’re all fun, but at some point Cresswell stops having plots and just starts throwing the characters together and letting them react off of each other, and some of the results are better than others. But the first few are excellent and all are enjoyable.

And Ordinary Jack is worth the read if only for the scene about the birthday party and the fireworks!

Other reviews:
A Tapestry of Words
Letters from a Hill Farm
Anyone else?

Buy it here: Ordinary Jack: Being the First Part of The Bagthorpe Saga

The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie

On May 27, 2013May 27, 2013 By cherylmahoneyIn Historical Fiction, Reviews5 Comments

I’ve been meaning to read more Agatha Christie (which may or may not have something to do with her appearance in Doctor Who…) and saw a review on Stella Matutina a few months ago for The Secret Adversary. I got the audiobook from the library–and absolutely loved it.

The Secret Adversary is a “Tommy and Tuppence” novel, about two friends who, hard-up for employment after World War I, form the Young Adventurers Ltd. Tuppence’s idea is to be criminals-for-hire, but instead they become enmeshed in an international spy thriller involving the Lusitania, a missing girl, vital documents, and the elusive criminal mastermind, “Mr. Brown.”

This was a delight of a book, which played to all my Anglophile tendencies. It’s so very, very British–or rather, a certain stereotype of Britishness. The dialogue is all full of “old thing, old bean, isn’t it all just ripping?” Much of the book takes place in London, so between ridiculous slang and wanderings through Hyde Park and Trafalgar Square, I was having a wonderful time with that angle.

It’s great fun (or terribly jolly?) from other angles too. Tommy and Tuppence are splendid characters. Tuppence (a nickname) is clever, saucy and altogether too sure of herself, and prone to flights of inspiration of varying value. She’s in many ways the driving force of the book, and I have to love an extravagant yet effective heroine. Tommy is much steadier and slower to think things out, but more likely to be right once he comes to a conclusion. Both are very likable, and they provide a nice balance for each other besides.

The mystery becomes somewhat convoluted in spots (not to mention coincidental!), but the essential notion of the mysterious (secret) adversary and international disaster is sound. I never quite followed all the political ramifications of how it would spell disaster if these vital documents fell into the wrong hands…something about the Labor party and a general strike and I’m not sure what. But I just accepted that it would mean the fall of the British Empire and went from there without worrying about the details.

There are some nicely tense moments and unexpected twists. I was sure I saw one twist coming that turned out to be a red herring. Well-played, Dame Agatha. Even better, once the final reveal came, it did make sense–it wasn’t one of those annoying bait-and-switch jobs.

The story, of course, revolves around two friends of opposite gender, so at least one aspect of the story isn’t much of a twist… The romantic moments are brief and mostly backdrop, but still fun and rather sweet.

The CDs I listened to were the “Audio Editions Mystery Masters” series. The narrator’s British accent contributed a good deal to the fun of the Britishisms, and he did make me jump at least once at a tense moment. I thought he struggled a bit with some of the other accents though; the American accent especially sounded forced. Not everyone can be Katherine Kellgren, though, and overall I’d recommend the audio.

There was just one thing I didn’t understand. On at least two occasions, probably more, a character named Jane Finn is referred to as having a wildly outlandish and unusual name. Um. Really? Jane Finn is outlandish? As opposed to, say, Tuppence? Maybe there’s some reference re: “Jane Finn” that made sense in 1922 and doesn’t anymore, because on that one, Christie lost me.

But with everything else, I was right along with her and her delightful characters. I enjoyed Murder on the Orient Express but didn’t feel obliged to rush out for more Hercule Poirot. On this one, I’ve already been hunting my library’s catalog for more of Tommy and Tuppence.

Other reviews:
Strange and Random Happenstance
Here There Be Books
Fell From Fiction
The Agatha Christie Project
Anyone else?

Buy it here: The Secret Adversary